Recent articles in the U.S. big-business media have pointed to "genocide" in Central Africa and the plight of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have been caught in the crossfire of an escalating conflict between the capitalist regimes in Rwanda, Zaire, and Burundi. The propaganda barrage begins to lay the groundwork for possible U.S. intervention in the region. It comes on the heels of a tour of the continent by U.S. secretary of state Warren Christopher proposing a so-called "Africa Crisis Response Force" of 10,000 soldiers, with the troops drawn from African armies and the primary funding from Washington.

As various pious commentators cry crocodile tears over the slaughter, not one whispers a suggestion to open the U.S. borders and allow the refugees to come here.

The U.S. rulers have absolutely no intention and are incapable of solving the conflict there or anywhere else in the world. They are concerned with maintaining stability in the region to allow them to advance their business interests, such as extracting raw material including crude oil, gemstones, metals, and cocoa.

Washington will more and more attempt to use its military might to impose its domination at the expense of working people and its imperialist rivals around the world. As the capitalist world continues to decline, competition among the imperialists is intensifying. Paris, which still considers Western and Central Africa its "sphere of influence," maintains a military presence in eight African countries, which it has not hesitated to use. Tensions between the two imperialist rivals are sharpening, as French government officials expressed their rulers' displeasure with Washington's moves to expand its influence on the African continent.

Thomas Sankara, who led a revolutionary government in the former French colony of Burkina Faso before he was assassinated in 1987, explained that the enemy of the African people is "imperialism that landed troops in certain countries."

Imperialist intervention by the French or U.S. governments will only increase the carnage and deepen the impoverishment of the African toilers in the region. Working people should oppose any military moves there by Washington or Paris, and demand: U.S. and France get out of Africa!  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home